A Radically Changed Heart: An Easter Reflection on a Continuing Miracle

When I was young, I wanted so badly to be cool and to fit in. Happily I outgrew that desire. I say happily, because being cool is just not something I will ever be. In my case, there is a large gap between aspiration and potential.

I went through other phases, had other traits I wanted to, often driven by the people I was around, the people with whom I spent my time. My junior year of high school, I was taken in by a group of girls whose intelligence was matched only by their kindness and patience. They let me join their study group and in doing so allowed me, a stranger in every way, full and free access to their sodality, a group with shared history and experience, a group whose bonds approached sisterhood. Because of them, I can tell you how to discern a Monet from a Manet and recite the early city-states of Ancient Greece. Inspired by their academic facility, I wanted to be smart. I even began to study.

Other friends made me want to be funny, a trait I developed reasonably well, although I was a typical teen, meaning there was certainly more quantity than quality. My humor could certainly be on the sharper side of things, and to the extent my desire for a getting a laugh ever battled with prudence, I fear prudence never won. In that battle, I always surrendered faster than a caricature of the French army.

I've wanted to be many other things: well-dressed. Wealthy. Influential. On and on. Most of these things are worthy aspirations, at least in moderation, and I don't have any shame for desiring them. But something has happened over the years: I don't really care about any of these things anymore.

Instead, I want to be kind. I want to be gentle. I want the ability to soothe aching hearts and smooth wounded feelings. This is really quite stunning to me because I genuinely aspire to these things, although they are profoundly opposite of the person I was in the past.

I don't pretend to be there yet. I get cranky and annoyed far too easily; sarcasm was my first language, and though I've learned to bite my tongue, I fear I still speak kindness with a heavy accent.

So with the willing confession that I'm a very early work-in-progress, I go back to the desire. It is that which I find most miraculous. I've learned that the development of traits is a matter of time and practice. That doesn't mean they are easy, but I'm not sure I find them miraculous. If you want something bad enough, if you try long enough, you will eventually get there.

But desire? That is something I do find miraculous since it is not easily manufactured. It does not simply happen with time and effort. Desire is as determinative as it is elusive. It has to spring from within, authentic and organic.

As I think about this miracle, I realize something: this phase of my life is no different from other phases. My aspirations are still shaped by those I follow and admire. In this case, it is shaped by the one I most admire, the one I worship.

Over the past years, I've tried to follow Jesus. My devotion and success has had its ups and downs, but I have genuinely tried, and that has not changed.

I think it is my desire to follow him that has led me to want to be kind and gentle. Anyone who knew me in years past will probably attest that gentleness is not a trait I was born with. Meekness and the ready willingness to trade being out in front for walking behind with someone who grieves is not who I naturally am.

But I have changed. I find myself ready to accept a lifetime as an obscure teacher if it means I can do some good. In fact, I not only accept it, I willingly embrace it. Former dreams of Broadway or bestseller lists grow pale and faint. Fame or prestige or wealth seem like so many bowls of pottage, which I would quickly trade for a more subtle, less flashy birthright.

This is a miracle. In trying to follow Jesus, I have changed. Or rather, he has changed me. Not my actions, not what I do--that remains a long journey that is just beginning. But he has changed how I feel and what I want. Not refined, not adjusted, he has absolutely transformed, a full renovation of desire and intent.

I've always thought that calming a storm or turning water into wine were wonderful, but probably really involved the application of higher knowledge or law and was not, in that sense, a miracle. But the changing of a human heart? That is a miracle beyond belief--especially a heart as stubborn, proud, and hard as mine has been.

Please don't mistake what I say: I am not good. I am not all that kind or gentle yet. My ability to heal with my words is the emotional equivalent of a newly-minted Cub Scout learning First Aid. I have not yet been able to carry another's burden with any degree of consistency. But I want those things. I aspire to them as I used to aspire to be funny or smart or brilliant. I want to speak soothing words with the same urgency I once wanted to sing on Broadway. Actually, I want them more. And that is a miracle. That is the demonstration of true power, a power that is unseen, unyielding, and unlimited.

In my mind, the truest mark of Christ's divinity is not that he healed the sick or comforted the bereaved, it is not the constancy of his kindness, of his gentleness, and love. It is the fact that he has made me want to do the same. Across millennia, he has changed my heart and anointed my aspirations.